Arbor Vitae                   Randolph Healy

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        II

       

      Past a knuckle in the fabric
      painted with horses, mammoths, bears,
      rhinoceros, ibex, a panther, an owl,
      and complex symbols and positive and stencilled hands,
      find
       

        The Convention, considering the incontestable
        superiority of articulation over signs ...

      Directly under the sun, elevation sixty degrees,
      on a finger of water, as if a single downstroke,
      sunflakes flicker at a frequency of eight hertz,
      those parts of the waves redirecting
      the sun's disc being thus tilted backwards,
      smearing the image.

      clause_tree(time):-!  /* true leaf */

      Two hundred million years ago
      some molluscs slid across this mud
      which became a calcareous shale
      heavy as a bottle of wine in my hand
      their tracks full of dodges to the side.

      A semi-circle made of red dots.
      A sign composed of linked semicircles.

      dash dash dash
      dot dash dot

      Having received the Volta award
      for an invention of profound historical significance,
      Bell set about eliminating sign language,
      preventing the deaf from intermarrying
      and requiring sterilisation of deaf girls,
      legislation for which was passed in some States.

      Engravings thirty feet from the floor,
      huge ancient subsidence.

      Dusk after dusk,
      a Neolithic shepherd carefully moves
      a pebble from one pouch to another
      telling his sheep before shutting them up.
      (Pouch empty / all home.
       Stones remaining / some lost.
       Not enough stones / ahead of the game.)

      The second branch must be higher and opposite.
      (Unless there is a back branch,
      but then the third must be oppose the first
      higher than the second.)

      clause_tree(Body). /* grow branches */

      A dozen or so clay models:
      bull's head, a sheep, a basket, a bar of gold.

      In an important transaction
      the tokens were wrapped in clay pouches
      on which were stamped two-dimensional
      analogues of their contents.

      dot dash dash dot dash dot dot

      A cross inside a circle portrayed a sheep.
      Cut out a notch to make it into  a ewe,
      two notches and it is pregnant.

      Wings thrash as a bird breaks cover.
      One word, then another, and another,
      until the conversation fills the sky.

      senseless and incapable of reasoning
       the "translated" Aristotle
      excluded from salvation
       Saint Augustine

      (It was later conceded that although they could not hear
      the word of God (Romans 10:17),
      hope was not to be abandoned
      if they could be taught to read)

      Piero di Castro's miraculous cure:
      Purge him first with hellebore
      then shave his head on which apply
      a salve of saltpetre, nitre, almond oil,
      aquavit and naptha.
      When on the next morning
      the voice is strongly urged at his crown
      he will perceive it and so learn to speak.

      Ay Ee   Ay Ee
      Eye   Uh     Ay Ee

      A slide of a cerebellar neurone,
      displaying over two hundred thousand synapses,
      projects beyond the edges of the screen,
      stained rich red, virginia creeper.

      The negation of AND leads to all gates:
      (aNANDa)NAND(bNANDb)
      that is, the embryo being embedded
      the primitive streak then forms
      along which all later structures will align.

      Constant whistling as growth leads to poorness of fit;
      rustle of paper amplified so as to drown everything else;
      interference and feedback from standard communications devices.

      Open one of those closed surfaces if you will but do
      Not expect an interior any more than if
      Early in the second movement, first the basses, the
      Oboes, the cellos, the trombones began to sound the same
      Note in never-ending regular rhythm until the
      Entire symphony capsized every instrument in unison
      Over and over the same note whether in time or not
      Not a hint that knowledge might be in the conn
      Ections rather than in a change of state
      Of any isolated unit of the system
      Never mind pattern or form
      Emerging from an array lacking a definite centre as if
      Overhead a flock of birds decided to land
      Netting a tree
      Excluded from the analysis while

      (aNANDb)NAND(aNANDb)

      On page eighty five a population graph
      suggests what it might be to be outside time:
      a hundred billion people smeared over millenia,
      mycelial tangle of life lines
      filling every niche in a mote
      floating light in an empty socket.

      But perhaps just out of synch,
      this mind of minds, weather balloon,
      history as blur or crawl
      or maybe even back to front:

      Attendant pays a couple to
      Drain their tank while in a  graveyard
      Evening rises as black crumbs climb onto bones.
      Notwithstanding, a pen inhales the tender words which
      One of those lovers writes thinking of scorched leaves
      Swirling upwards to dress, green and bud a diminishing tree
      In whose moving light-mosaic kisses were still kisses.
      No less conserved, bed-work-bed proceeds as normal but
      Elsewhere there is a price as all
      Those paintings are unpainted, statues brought to block
                                                 and years of
      Research cover great ideas.
      If I had a hi-fi
                   not
      Pain, destitution, evil, though they mostly improve
                                          and "Richtlice
      Hi sind Angle gehatene", came the answer
      Over Drosophila's mosaic eye
      Squinting at our compound vision as it crawled across the
      Page.  Fricative to voiceless stop.
      Horse to ekwal.
      And we,
      Treasuring every moment, drift to the
      End, dissolving in the womb.

      Someone left out the bison, and that the paintings,
      although not truly polychromatic,
      were in black and red ochre
      (manganese and iron oxide).
      And that they also show evidence of age and long term erosion
      are covered in crystals of calcite
      and have been clawed by actual bears.

      The stones became an endless progression
      of dimensionless points
      stretching past any horizon -
      each one's successor guaranteed.
      (Until the fractions came.)

      Hard of hearing,
      deaf
      mild, moderate, severe, profound,
      autosomal , X-linked,
      dominant , recessive,
      multifactorial, chromosomal,
      conductive, sensorineural , mixed

      post-lingual,
      pre-lingual,

      non-lingual,

      their world a document
      laid out all around you,
      key text centred, bold, underlined,
      illegible, and surrounded by small print,
      growing smaller and smaller…

      Use your voice.

       

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